


It's Like This Old Inuvit Story I Knew

by rageprufrock



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thursday morning, Ray woke up with a Mountie sitting at the foot of his bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Like This Old Inuvit Story I Knew

Thursday morning, Ray woke up with a Mountie sitting at the foot of his bed.

He blinked twice, debated going back to sleep, or indulging in whatever tripped-out fantasy his brain had supplied that night. The Mountie made the decision for him, and when he turned around, Ray saw a totally unfamiliar face with strong, handsome lines and white hair cut neatly.

"Um, hi," he said awkwardly.

The Mountie looked grim. "You're late for work, son. That's not ethic I condone," he said.

Ray blinked again, and looked at his bedside clock, which read eight forty-five. He felt his lips curve into a crooked smile, and he turned to the Mountie again.

"Hey, that's funny," he said. "'Cause you're acting like I'm awake. Or something."

"You are," the man repeated. "And call me 'Sir,' son."

Ray squirmed this time, and said, "Uh. Sure. Sir."

Now, the Mountie was glaring at him; it was uncomfortably similar to the occasions Fraser let his human nature get the best of his RCMP training.

"Late, son," the man proclaimed loudly. "Unconscionably late!"

And when Ray didn't move, the Mountie sighed and walked out of the room. Ray went back to sleep and woke up five minutes later shouting "fuck!" at the top of his lungs. He fell down three times trying to brush his teeth and pull on his pants at the same time, and he was halfway to the office before he remembered the dream.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself, tapping his finger on his steering wheel at a red light.

*****

Fraser was already at the police department by the time Ray stumbled to his desk. Diefenbaker was gnawing on a donut, probably swiped from Hewey, and seemed content where he was tucked away near the water cooler. Fraser, red and impeccable, looked concerned.

"Are you okay, Ray?" he asked, totally sincere.

"Sure, fine, great," Ray managed.

He stared at his blotter for a bit before it registered: he'd had a dream about a Mountie. An elderly Mountie. Ray felt the sudden desire to throw his stapler at Fraser's head; this was obviously all his fault. Prior to transferring to the 2-7, Ray Kowalski had never been found dreaming about geriatric members of the Queen's finest.

"Are you sure, Ray?" Fraser pressed, skeptical.

Ray was struck dumb a minute by Fraser's blue, blue eyes, but finally forced himself to say, "Uh. Yeah. No, really. I'm fine. Just--" he made a vague motion with his hands "--didn't sleep too great, you know?"

Then Welsh called Fraser--"Not you, Vecchio," he'd said, "just the Canadian," and Fraser had stared at Ray briefly as if he was sorry about it or something--into his office and Ray was left staring at his pens and boggling at how he hadn't been castigated for tardiness. And also about the old Mountie thing.

"You need to get a move on, son."

Ray whipped around, jittering.

The Mountie was leaning against his desk, looking dissatisfied.

"Look," Ray said. "I'm at work. I'm actually awake now. You're supposed to go away."

He snorted. "Son, call me 'Sir,' and for goodness sake. If I didn't leave when I died I'm certainly not leaving because you're unwilling to face reality."

Ray was getting a headache. And he was very scared. He glanced around the bullpen; it was mostly quiet--unbelievable, he thought--and no one else seemed to find anything strange about the extra Mountie.

"Okay, am I hallucinating?" he asked seriously. "I mean--did I go on a bender?"

The Mountie's frown deepened. "Do you do things like that often, son? Do you?"

"Uh, no," Ray was compelled to answer. "No. Just--well, my wife left me." The man raised his eyebrows. Ray was going insane. This was insane. "She left me a long time ago," he explained. "Irreconcilable differences, at least that's what it said on our--"

"And he finally snaps."

Ray blinked, watching surprised as Frannie appeared at the corner of his eyes.

"Talking to yourself," she said, cocking an eyebrow and putting her weight on her left hip. "This is crazier than usual."

Ray frowned. "So you don't see him?" He paused. "The other Mountie."

Frannie stared at him for a moment, walked over to Welsh's office, and knocked on the closed door, saying, "Lieu? Vecchio's got Canadian on the brain."

"Francesca, if you cannot find a more productive way to amuse yourself, I will find one for you," Welsh yelled through the door, sounding uncomfortably like Ray's fourth grade teacher.

"Seriously, Ray," Frannie said, concerned, "you okay? You're--" she made a face "--kinda dilated there, bud."

The elderly Mountie, who was still standing beside Ray's desk, made a disappointed noise. "It's a shame, really. She's so pretty and healthy. She'd make good, strong young ones." The Mountie shot a dirty look toward Welsh's office, and Ray figured that this had to be one of the many, many side-effects of long-term companionship with the seriously mentally disturbed, and vowed to call Fraser up on it, him and his little wolf, too.

"I'm good, Frannie, really," he insisted, waving his hands. "Sorry about--about the thing."

Frannie, seeing no further entertainment in tormenting Ray, flounced off to paint her nails and madden the clerks with her filing system, which despite its relative strangeness never failed to produce the most remarkable cross-references whenever an officer was in a pinch. Ray was convinced this was the only reason that Frannie had not yet been fired.

"Then again, your commanding officer is also a commendable," the old Mountie said approvingly, "solid, dependable man." The smile on his face faltered slightly. "Not that, however, it would be a more satisfactory decision for Benton to have made--"

"Woah," Ray said, eyes widening, "what about Fraser?"

"I can't believe that you wouldn't already know," the Mountie said, frowning. "You needn't play coy with me, young man, after all, the dead are beyond caring." A pause. "Or at least, beyond the ability to inflict blunt head trauma."

Ray ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. If he wished hard enough, maybe this day would end, and he'd blink and be in bed again, the birds would be singing outside the window, somebody would be giving him a blowjob, and the wolf would be out chasing birds or something. It could happen. Ray believed in miracles.

"It's too early for this," he moaned.

"Early!" the Mountie barked. "By this time of day, Buck Frobisher and I could have apprehended and booked several illegal trappers! Early nothing, son."

Ray, abandoning hope of understanding, groped for some paperwork he was supposed to do several days--weeks--possibly months ago, and started scribbling words onto it with a blue ballpoint pen.

"Oh, boy," the Mountie sighed softly, "now, he sulks."

When Ray looked up again, the Mountie was gone, but Fraser was coming out of Welsh's office, looking apple-cheeked and Canadian.

"Hey, are there any visiting ones of you down here?" Ray asked suddenly, dropping his pen.

"Ones of me," Fraser said uncertainly.

"You know," Ray insisted, "Mounties."

Fraser, settling in the chair next to Ray's desk, frowned, and said, "Oh. Not that I'm aware of, no, Ray. Well, except for Constable Thatcher, Turnbull, and myself, naturally."

"Naturally," Ray muttered, and clawed at his desk blotter.

That was Thursday.

*****

On Friday, after receiving a call en route from lunch, Ray and Fraser rushed to the scene of what dispatch says the caller described as a vicious stabbing. Ray fell three times in the half-foot of snow that was already on the ground, and got slapped in the face by four sets of twinkly icicle lights. By the time he reached the scene, he was ready to declare war on Christmas only to find a woman shrieking at the top of her lungs while her boyfriend jabbed a butcher knife repeatedly into a large, plaster Santa Claus. Fraser gently disarmed the man and Ray gave the woman a lecture on the finer points of not falsely alerting the police.

In the car on the way back to the station, Fraser asked if Ray wanted to go Christmas shopping together. Ray asked Fraser if he was going to pick any more fights with mob bosses, and Fraser got sullen and quiet for a minute before he caved and said he'd keep his mouth shut.

"Good," Ray muttered. "And for God's sake--this time, no buying logs."

*****

Saturday morning, Ray was wandering around his apartment scratching his belly and squinting his eyes at everything he owned. This worked until he saw a the red uniform and Mountie hat and accompanying Mountie standing in front of his opened refrigerator door, peering into it with a distinct expression of disapproval.

"Oh, God," Ray moaned. "I am going nuts."

"Not unless insanity can be caused by poor nutrition," the Mountie said, shutting the door and turning back to frown at Ray. "Honestly, I don't see how I can entrust Benton to you if you can't even be trusted to feed yourself well, son."

Ray cracked open one eye and said, "Entrust Fraser?"

The Mountie rolled his eyes. "Yes, entrust him. I'm told it's something fathers do." The old man looked sentimental for a moment, murmuring dreamily, "I had hoped that I would be able to witness his wedding, and that I could meet his bride face to face." He looked at Ray importantly. "She would, of course, have good, wide hips."

Ray found himself nodding stupidly. "Yeah, sure."

The Mountie looked sadly at Ray's hips, which was an accomplishment, as Ray really didn't have any, just jutting bones on the sides of his skinny, gangly body that still made him self-conscious with new lovers and Fraser, who seemed to have a layer of finely sculpted muscle over every inch of his pale, smooth figure. Bastard.

"I don't suppose you could wear white? Just to humor me?" the Mountie asked.

"I got a white t-shirt," Ray offered crazily. "That work?"

The Mountie made a sour expression. "No," he said, and disappeared.

That was Saturday.

*****

Sunday, on the way to the mall, Ray debated how to start a conversation with Fraser about being haunted by a Mountie. On the one hand, considering Fraser licked things that had once been alive and or used to kill something that was, in terms of relative nuttiness, Fraser still won, hands down; on the other hand, Ray was being haunted by a Mountie in full dress uniform. He wanted to attribute it to the time Randy Harris, the richest guy Ray had ever met, had turned an entire Jacuzzi into a gravity bong, but Ray figured that probably wasn't it.

"You have something on your mind," Fraser said, easily and with certainty. In the backseat, Deifenbaker made a sound of agreement; two to one, clearly, Ray was going to have to cough up the truth--or make up something really good.

"There's this--" Ray did something expressive with some wiggling fingers "--there's been a thing recently. It's kind of messing with my head," he admitted.

Fraser's eyes softened. "Is everything all right, Ray?" he asked gently.

"Yeah, yeah," Ray quickly reassured him, turning into the mall parking lot. "I mean, I'm not like, losing sleep over it or anything, but, I dunno. It's definitely a little queer."

Ray's eyes suddenly got huge. Oh, shit, he thought, I said it.

And then they were somehow standing in the food court, and half the people there were, as usual, giving Fraser the eye. Fraser, as usual, was bickering with Deifenbaker over whether or not purchasing gifts took priority over eating something wildly unhealthy. And Ray, Ray realized, was, as usual--God, he thought, as usual--smiling at Fraser, and it was definitely a little bit queer.

*****

It was the last weekend before Christmas, and it seemed the entire population of Chicago had turned out to park themselves in the food court. There was barely breathing room, and Ray listened to Fraser argue with the wolf as they wound through the crowd, which always parted appreciatively for Fraser and seemed to close right back up again for Ray. Figured.

"Your arguments are poorly constructed and fallacious," Fraser said reasonably to Deif, who scrunched up his muzzle in a wolf-scowl.

Fraser was wearing jeans and boots and the leather jacked that looked butter-soft. Ray wondered when and where Fraser had gotten it, how long he'd had it. Once, Fraser had covered Ray with it when Ray had passed out at the Consulate, waiting for Fraser to finish something before they headed to a stakeout. Ray still remembered that it smelled nice, not distinct or piney or any of the stereotypical shit, but nice.

"Besides which, you don't have any money and you know every well what happened last time you went begging for food from innocent shoppers," Fraser went on, "It won't take long."

Ray spied a music store. "Hey," he said, and Fraser looked up, nodding.

Ray was neck deep in Mingus collections when he heard a now-familiar voice saying, "Though I naturally and understandably have my reservations, he does seem happier with you."

"You're seriously getting on my nerves, guy," Ray muttered, and determinedly compared two different four CD box sets. He wanted to give Fraser a comfortable introduction to alternative jazz, ideally, there'd be a single for "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" but life was not on Ray's side, and besides, it'd be kind of cheap to buy Fraser a song for Christmas. Maybe the guy who sold logs was still there--Ray said Fraser wasn't gonna buy any, never said Ray couldn't give him one. And Jesus, that was also queer.

"I'm a concerned father, son," the Mountie insisted, but jolly this time. "You're really taking this very well. I've seen people driven mad by being visited from the afterlife, you know."

"Yeah, with your mouth, I ain't surprised," Ray snapped, glaring.

The jazz section of the store was pretty deserted, which while good because he could talk to himself--or the ghost, whatever--and not get hauled away to the loony bin, spoke badly about musical taste in the world. There were a lot of people buying albums with Britney Spears on the cover, and Ray just wasn't going to think about that.

"Are you seriously Fraser's dad?" he demanded. "Because that would explain a lot."

"Hm," the Mountie said, distracted. "Is that pornography or music?" he asked.

Ray glanced over at the display the older Mountie was looking at.

"I--I don't know," Ray admitted.

"How very queer," the man said, and disappeared again.

Fraser who was perusing the TRANCE/TECHNO/ELECTRONICA section with a whimsically puzzled expression three rows over, looked up, and smiled supportively. The blond, sixteen year old male clerk and every girl in the store scowled at Ray simultaneously.

"Okay," Ray muttered, gritting his teeth, "I get it, I get it. You can cut it out now."

It was still Sunday.

*****

Fraser had just convinced Ray not to buy Stella a cactus and send it to her with a card that said, "Prickly--just like you," when Ray apparently developed Turrets and blurted out:

"Fraser, I think your dad's haunting me!"

All the blood drained out of Fraser's face.

"Old Mountie dude, right?" Ray went on urgently. "Really annoying? Uh--no offense."

"Oh, dear," Fraser said.

The wolf barked sympathetically.

"Yeah," Ray stuttered. He laughed nervously. "So I'm nuts, right?"

Only Fraser didn't tell Ray he needed to sleep more or drink less or ask him if he had been rolling--not that Fraser necessarily knew what "rolling" meant, but he'd definitely ask if Ray had been "indulging in club drugs or uppers, because if you are, Ray, not only is that unethical and disappointing for an officer of the law it's a concern for me, as I am your partner and friend and care about you in a strictly platonic and very cockteasing way." Maybe Fraser wouldn't say "cockteasing," but the sentiment was there. But Fraser didn't do any of that and just glared into the air around them, face dark red with anger or embarrassment or the same kind of crazy that Ray's got and is apparently going around.

"No, not nuts," Fraser finally said quietly. He looked at the ground for a long time before he sighed and asked, "Would you like to get some dinner? I suppose we have a lot to talk about."

Somehow, it was still Sunday.

*****

"You can--" Fraser appeared to be struggling for words, "--see. Him?"

Ray nodded. "Yeah, Fraser, look, this--it's probably just my imagination, right?"

"I don't think so, Ray," Fraser said quietly.

And then suddenly Fraser looked tired, and older than Ray remembered, rubbing his face with his hands. The wolf whimpered and laid his head down on Fraser's knee, which was the most supportive Ray had ever seen him.

"When did you start seeing him?" Fraser asked tiredly. Ray could see Fraser's blue eyes from beneath the fringe of his long eyelashes--too long for a guy.

Ray tried not to affect his normal response-mechanism to stress and turn it into a joke, since Fraser generally hated that anyway and this time it looked worse than normal. He ran his hands through his hair, fingers flattening out all the spikes.

"A couple of days ago," he admitted. "He told me I was going to be late for work. Been following me around ever since." Ray scowled. "He keeps casing me, Fraser, like I'm a mark or a jewelry store--it's freaking me out."

Fraser looked like he was sailing the good ship I'm About To Puke; Ray could really connect with that, but he really couldn't think of much to say. It was kind of Fraser's fault, Ray had to admit. If he'd never met the Mountie, then logically, his creepy-ass Mountie dad wouldn't be haunting Ray, either. The entire thing was starting to give him a headache. The day had started off going so well, too: Fraser didn't offend any mob bosses, nobody bought any logs.

When Fraser finally got it together enough to talk, it was to say:

"I--I'm so sorry, Ray."

Ray stared.

"What? Why?" he demanded.

"This is all my fault," Fraser mourned, covering his face with his hands. "I've been so foolish, Ray. I actually thought he was sincere when he said he wanted to discuss things. I had no idea that he would burden you with the information I gave him, or that he'd been behaving so inappropriately--"

"Woah, woah," Ray cut him off, frowning. "What the hell's going on, Fraser?"

Fraser turned dark red, which looked just awful against him being green to the gills.

"Honestly, Ray, this was never my intention," Fraser said desperately.

"Okay, I believe you," Ray promised. This was getting quee--weird. Weirder than usual. He looked at Fraser hard, which meant he had to physically make Fraser look him in the eye by cupping Fraser's face--and Jesus, Ray wasn't going to think about the other things he could do with his thumbs smoothing over Fraser's cheekbones.

"Just--what's going on, Fraser?"

Ray knew he sounded less understanding than he wanted to come off, but damn it, he was being haunted by dead guys in red and the wolf felt bad for him--this was all seriously fucking wrong.

"I may have told my father I was interested in you," Fraser admitted, but he said it all in a rush so it sounded kind of like "Imhafawainrestedyu." But Ray could decode Fraser-ese, so he just gaped while Fraser's eyes got huge and guilty and Fraser seemed like he couldn't stop talking.

"He was bothering me--as he is frequently found to do--and pressing me as to when I would marry and provide him with what I personally feel is a rather excessive number of grandchildren and somehow, it came to the point where he claimed I spent an untoward amount of time with you, even considering our professional partnership."

Dad bugged me about having kids and said I never met any chicks because I'm always with you, Ray translated in his head.

"And then, rather stupidly in hindsight--" Fraser babbled and rubbed frantically at his eyebrow, if he kept that up he'd only have one at the end of the night "--suggested flippantly that perhaps women and a future with one was not what I was looking for at all, and somehow, all of this escalated into a totally puerile argument about the relative obligations of father and son to reveal all of their most personal secrets."

I said I don't like girls, my dad freaked, Ray heard.

"But honestly, Ray, when I said that maybe I was just waiting for you to come around I didn't think that my father would become such a nuisance in your life," Fraser insisted, even though Ray's brain had derailed, train-wrecked, and stopped translating. "I really--it was a moment of unintentional honesty and of all the people in the world my father was the very last one who I'd want to--"

Ray gurgled.

"For God's sake, son, shake him, the boy looks as if he's catatonic!"

Ray moaned; he was hearing things now. Fantastic.

But then Fraser did shake him, a little frantically, like his sense of perception was so skewed that the phantom voices in Ray's head had started giving good advice.

"Whu--! No, I'm good," Ray said and Fraser awkwardly stopped jerking him around by the shoulders. "I'm cool. Yeah, that's--Hey!"

Fraser's dad was back, and lurking. He had one of those prig-nose expressions on his face that always made Ray think of Stella's folks. In fact, it was the exact same expression that Stella's parents had had--back when Ray had come over to their house with the huge-ass double doors and the housekeeper and asked if he could marry Stella. Fraser looked nauseous, which appropriately was the same expression Stella had way back when. This was all getting too fucking retro for Ray's tastes.

"What the fuck are you doing here again?" he yelled, pointing over Fraser's shoulder, which just made Fraser turn around in surprise and drop Ray, who he'd been kind of holding up.

"Dad!" Fraser yelped.

Fraser's dad rolled his eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, boys."

"You!" Ray accused, shoving himself up to his feet. "You with the creepy post-mortem stalking!"

Fraser looked scandalized. "Dad!"

"Don't you 'Dad!' me, son," Fraser Senior said, totally shameless. He turned to glare at Ray, who took a big step back. "And you, Yank. I know I've always said you've been a bit slow on the uptake but honestly, I've never seen anybody dimmer!"

And before Ray could protest Fraser's dad just plowed on, "I mean, my son's entire social life revolves around you! He hates your ex-wife--"

"You hate Stella?" Ray interrupted, turning to Fraser, who looked guilty.

"Yes," Fraser admitted guiltily.

"Well, shit," Ray said.

"--he practically lights up every time he sees you! A bear in heat is less obvious!" the ghost finished, frustrated. Fraser covered his face with his hands, and from what Ray could see, his ears were turning a totally unnatural shade of red.

"Dad, regardless of the fact that you are already dead," Fraser murmured through his palms, "I am fully prepared to find a way to kill you again at this moment."

"I'm only hurrying things along," his dad insisted, unrepentant. "Death's boring enough."

That inspired Fraser to look up, if only to glare daggers at his dad. And when Ray and Fraser's eyes met, he looked guilty and sick and terrified, like he thought that as soon as this totally surreal conversation ended, everything else would end, too. Ray, on the other hand, felt like he was only starting to get everything, figure stuff out, slide the important pieces into the right slots until they spelled it all out for him. He couldn't believe he'd have to credit a goddamn psychotic ex-Mountie ghost for all of this one day.

Finally, Ray nodded, and said, "Okay."

Fraser stared. "Okay?"

"Yeah--" Ray made a broad hand gesture at Fraser's dad, who looked offended "--can you like, scram?"

"Well, I never--!" Fraser's dad started while Fraser jumped and said, "Oh, of course I can--"

Ray held out a hand, and rubbed at his temple with the other.

"No, no," he soothed. He pointed at Fraser Senior. "You, scram, beat it. Vaporize, or whatever."

Fraser's dad's response to that was to glare at Fraser and hiss, "Terrible, son. No hips at all," and disappear in the blink of an eye, simply melting into the background of Ray's living room and ceasing to be. It was almost as if he'd never been there to begin with, but the haunted, traumatized look on Fraser's face said otherwise.

"Ray, I don't think--" Fraser started, red-faced. Ray swore he saw the wolf roll its eyes.

"You," Ray said, much more softly. "You stay."

"Right," Fraser agreed, eyes darting around the room. "Naturally, you'd want to talk about this."

Ray's eyes softened like his voice, he could feel it, and he didn't really want to talk about anything. He just wanted to reach his hand over to Fraser's, so he did, and the look that flashed across Fraser's face when Ray laced their fingers together told Ray everything--filled in all of those blanks that were left over from before.

"You stay," he said again.

"Oh," Fraser murmured. "I can do that."

*****

On Christmas day, Ray made Fraser go eat dinner with Ray's folks and when they got back to the apartment early the next morning the wolf had puked on the kitchen floor and Ray found a message from Stella on his answering machine, the latter of which made Fraser wince more than the former.

"It appears this isn't going to be all perfect and stuff," Ray said gruffly.

Fraser sighed. "I'll get some paper towels."

So in the end, mostly because it was Ray and Fraser and his damn deaf wolf, there was something queer, but upon reflection, Ray decided he could deal with it.


End file.
